Turning a CD-ROM player into a DiscMan

Some years ago I had a very old CD-ROM player laying around, a double speed drive. I didn't have a use for it because it couldn't read data CD's anymore but I remembered audio CD's played well and came up with the idea to try to use it as a DiscMan since I didn't have one yet. I found out it only needed 5V input, not 12V. So all I had to do was make a 5V regulation circuit. I've noticed that newer CD-ROM players tend to use both the 5V and 12V leads, in that case you're out of luck. If your circuit draws more than 100 mA of current, which is probably true for a CD-ROM player, you need a heatsink to cool the regulator. I found one from an old powersupply, a pretty large one for this kind of regulator but I don't mind.

It was a pretty easy job but the result wasn't very practical. You see this CD-ROM player wasn't particularly designed to be very efficient or economic. With rechargable batteries from a remote controlled car (8 AA batteries) it played for a whopping half hour.... And I almost forget, if you touched the table it lay on it would skip.

I found the schematic at http://www.hut.fi/Misc/Electronics/circuits/vga2tv/psu_5v.html

Photo of old 2x CD-ROM drive
The 2X CD-Rom drive

Detail of heatsink
The (ridiculously large) heatsink

Detail of components stuffed inside CD-ROM drive
The components stuffed inside the drive